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Introduction

Criminal informants provide important information to the justice system, but they also pose serious risks. We hope this website will help attorneys, journalists, advocates, and families to better understand this vital area of public policy.

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WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

Criminal informants are famously unreliable. Jailhouse snitch testimony often leads to wrongful conviction. Over 45 percent of all innocent people exonerated from death sentences were wrongfully convicted based on the testimony of a lying criminal informant. This makes snitches the leading cause of wrongful conviction in U.S. capital cases.

YOUNG INFORMANTS

Police sometimes use children as young as 14 as informants. These children may be exposed to drugs, violence, and other criminal activities as they work to get information for their handlers. Some have been killed. California and New Jersey have laws restricting the practice: in other states police have discretion to use juvenile informants.

INFORMANT CRIMES

Some informants are serious criminals who receive leniency for their own crimes. The FBI has been known to use murderers as informants. Many jurisdictions permit drug dealers to continue selling drugs in exchange for cooperation. In 2011, the crimes committed by FBI informants alone totaled over 5,600.

URBAN COMMUNITIES PAY THE PRICE

Informants are a staple of drug enforcement. This means that where drug enforcement is heaviest, informant activity is also heaviest. Because drug arrests occur disproportionately in low-income African American neighborhoods, those residents must live with the crime, violence, and distrust that go with criminal informant use.

REFORM

Many states are rethinking their criminal informant policies. Some have passed laws restricting the use of jailhouse snitch witnesses. Some have created new rules for disclosure and accountability. The U.S. Congress is considering a number of reforms that would improve transparency and safety. In the future, the laws governing criminal informants will likely look very different than they do today.

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Monday, November 24, 2014

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: 1,000 affidavits reveal an "informant mill"

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has published a series of in depth articles based on 1,329 affidavits filed in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh from 2009 through 2014. "The affidavits reveal an informant mill in which suspects became informants and helped agents to bust others, who then in turn became informants aimed at other targets." The series also includes stories regarding corrupt police, cases derailed by informants and wrongful convictions. From the Post-Gazette:

"The Post-Gazette has uncovered instances in which informants used to build federal cases were convicted murderers, liars or double agents working with both law enforcement and the targets. One informant with a violent past, used in a DEA case that ended in acquittal, wasn't put through the federal review process.

The results have included the indictment and incarceration of people whose lives were turned upside-down prior to their exonerations. Only nine people have been fully acquitted in federal court cases brought in Pittsburgh since 2009, but four of those not guilty verdicts involved shaky informants. Two of those exonerated defendants first spent years behind bars."

From the affidavits, the Post-Gazette constructed a picture of how often different federal agencies used informants in that jurisdiction. On average, approximately 40 percent of the affidavits relied on informants, but agencies diverged. For example, an article entitled "Gathering and Analyzing Data," the Post-Gazette explained:

"Confidential informants were much more prevalent in drug cases. Of the 94 cases led by the Drug Enforcement Administration or its task forces, 60 were built using confidential informants. Thus nearly two-thirds of the DEA's cases were based on secret sources. By contrast, the FBI used confidential informants in just under one-third of the 126 cases that stemmed from its affidavits. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives used confidential informants in 13 out of 34 cases, or 38 percent, consistent with the average."